There are a lot of you who do not know what farming is...this guide is to help you understand what it is, and how to deal with it.

Farming is being attacked by a player or players repeatedly , normally for resources or hero points.

When I say for hero points, I mean that when they attack you and you
have troops, their hero kills them. When the hero kills them he gets
points or experience for those kills. The resource part is slightly
more obvious, as they just take your resources preventing you from
building anything or at least slowing you down.

Here is your savior, the Players Guide to Farming!

This is being written from a few sources, most notably a previous
"Anti-Farming Guide" that had to be removed for certain reasons that
shall remain unknown. I am in no way copying, nor plagiarizing upon
that authors work, just using it as a guide.

What is Travian, it is a game, it is a war game, not Sim
City. It is a game that is about building troops and your city at the
same time, it is about farming, it is about attacking, it is about
coordination. Travian is a game that has many aspects to it. Yes, it is
confusing at first, it was to me and to every other player who is
currently playing and that has played. Everyone starts somewhere, they
were all new just like you are now.

When you first start out you are given a beginners protection period,
that is for your safety to get a foothold in the game. Depending on how
long the server has lasted (so far), the protection period will vary.
(Each server starts out at 3 days, with the exception of speed which
starts at 1 day.)

In this game, you need a good spawn location to get anywhere. Let's start with that...

Firstly, the quadrants of a server are very important. Usually the
South quadrants are the most tranquil, but it varies from server to
server. You might want to remember that when choosing your quadrant. If
you don't care, then choose random and pray.

Once you get your location, take a look at your 7 x 7, if there are a
lot of higher population players near you, please consider deleting and
restarting somewhere else. If there are not, then take a look at your
13 x 13, see what it looks like there. If you see a lot of players that
you feel could be a danger to you, delete and restart. If players
around you are roughly the same size, or if it's a new server and there
are not many players, then you will probably want to stay there. Your
neighbors are potential allies or farms.

This all depends on the age of the server; if it is newer you will get
near a lot of new players, if it is a few months in there will not be a
'perfect spawn' location. Now, the game has a built in system that
tries to make sure you get near new players, though it is not a for
sure thing.

For more information on how this works, please see this thread on our sister forum.

Another thing to remember is to make sure you will have some farms if
not a lot by the time you are ready to farm. At least make sure there
are some villages that are in yout 13 x 13 that will be farmable for
you when you are ready.

If you are new: whether the server is one week old or several months
make sure you have at least one cranny (Level 10) at the end of your
Beginner's Protection period. It doesn't matter what server you play
on; you will probably want to do this.

For Teutons and Romans: A level 10 cranny can hold 1000 resources, that is 1000 of each!.

For Gauls: A level 10 cranny can hold 2000 resources, that is 2000 of each!

(Also, when being raided by a Teuton, they can steal 1/3 of the
resources hidden in your cranny, meaning if it held 3000 they could
steal 1000...)

Raiding in Travian is very important, you need to make a profit from your raids or they are pointless...

If people are raiding you and you give up a lot of resources and/or
hero experience, they will keep doing it. As long as they are profiting
from you it is worth it. Which is why you need to make it pointless for
them to attack you. If people get nothing, they will stop (most will
anyway).

If you notice a raid or attack coming your way here is what you want to do:

Check what race your attacker is.

Check your cranny level(s), get your resource levels below those
numbers; if your attacker is a Teuton multiply your cranny capacity by
2/3 and get to the resource level you get.

Crannies will always cover the amount required to upgrade, so upgrading
your cranny should not be a problem. One cranny is allowed per village
until it gets to level 10, after that you can build as many as you have
spaces available. As a rule, make sure your cranny level covers at
least your warehouse and granary levels, if not more.

When you are attacked the first few times, move all of your troops out
of the village. Send them on a raid to someone far enough away that
they will not return until after the raid has hit. You can also
reinforce a someone you know, or someone you don't know. If you want
you can send them to someone, so that they are gone when the
attack/raid hits then cancel the troop movement. You have 90 seconds
after sending to do so. You will want to wait until about 20 seconds
before the attack hits, then send them out. Recall them immediately
after the attack lands via your rally point.

All attacks, when you are small, should be dodged. If the attacker sees
troops, they will most likely come back with catapults. As I said, many
attackers will constantly attack you for his hero experience if they
see soldiers. I have used this tactic many times to get a high
offensive rank, don't be a victim of this.

Before you do anything else, take a look at reports from when the
person in question attacks/raids you. If they have profited and
continue to do so, you may want to read the earlier parts of this guide
again.
Anyway, if they are still profiting from raiding you, they will
probably not want to stop. It is worth more to attack you and get
resources than to be your friend. If they have not profited, send them
a message (these will be covered in a bit).

Sending messages to a farmer is one of the best ways to get them to stop, though this does not always go as planned.

Sorry if this seems repetitive, but it is far easier to get farmers to
give you a return trip than it is to get them to stop. Taunting your
attackers after you cranny up is never a wise thing. Most larger
players have catapults and you can go from 80 population to 0
population within a day. So this is never the way to go.

When you are going to message someone, make sure you are in a good
mood, or at least are calm. This is the internet, hardly anyone takes
threats seriously, and most just laugh at insulting curse word ridden
messages. Sending one of these to your attacker will just make them
want to attack more. Remember, Travian is a game; this should have no effect on your real life, don't let it. (Restart if you have to.)

Now to the messages part!

Here is a message that someone sent me. This is another of my 0 population victims.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farm

lol
you can't distroy cranny's so it doesn;t matter how much you attack me
i'm now on 4 lvl 10 and one lvl 5 and building so keep wasting your time

With this message, there are several things wrong. First of all,
he said I cannot destroy his crannies; it is very possible to destroy
crannies (which I did do to him). It may have taken a while longer, but
it got done. His language usage was another problem that I had with
him, while I do use "chatspeak" a lot, I usually type properly. If
farms send me complaingt in "chatspeak" or "1337" they get destroyed.
To really seal his doom, he said that I was wasting my time. Thanks,
but I’ll determine what wastes my time, thank you. My catapults had no
other targets, swordsmen are too slow to raid with, and it’s hard to
resist the temptation to catapult someone after a message like this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taxed Farm

I
was wondering if there was any way I could pay you to not attack
me...I'd gladly pay any reasonable tax for as long as you want to stop
the raids. I understand if you would rather farm, but I can help you
out if you want. Nice army, by the way.

This is a message, this is not some crap that a 3 year old typed.
I respect people (more) when they type like this when they are asking
me to do something. He paid me a certain amount of resources for a few
weeks and I let him be on his way. (Note: This will not always work...)

Anyway, repeated farming is a common problem. Just ensure that they
don’t get hero experience, resources, or fun out of attacking. Try
offering tribute, but in all cases, send civil messages only.

If you were successful in stopping the farmers attacks or at least not
giving him any resources, there may come a time when he decides to get
rid of you completely. He will need catapults for this.

If he is still getting resources and you have not stopped him AND have
not messaged him; you may want to look into that when you restart.

The way battles are calculated, catapults are counted as infantry. The normal format for a catapult attack is:

Clear wave. (Consists of Large Army and either 1 catapult or a number of them.)

Catault Wave (Consists of an escourt (smaller than clear) and as many catapults as needed.)

Catault Wave (Consists of an escourt (smaller than clear) and as many catapults as needed.)

Catault Wave (Consists of an escourt (smaller than clear) and as many catapults as needed.)

Continuing with as many waves of catapults as they can.

Sometimes they will send a larger attack force with a catapult wave,
just to clear any defenders you squeeze in between the waves.

If you see this format of attack, and you have defensive troops, your
best bet would be to dodge the initial wave and try and defend against
the catapult waves as they usually
have less of an army with them. Because catapults are calculated as
infantry, try to use Praetorians or Druidriders as the units that hit
the attacking catapults. Catapults are expensive enough that farmers
will lose profits most of the time, and when the farmer sees that his
target is knowledgeable, he/she may think twice before hitting again.

However, if it is clear that the farmer is bent on destruction of your
village, and no-one can or is willing to help you, you will want to
think about deleting your account and restarting elsewhere. If you play
a server that has been around for a while, you may want to consider
restarting on a newer one.

This concludes the tutorial on how to deal with farmers! If you see any
problems, or would like me to add something, just send me a PM and I
will get it in (if it is needed).